Responsibility vs. Blame

by Dr. Amy Johnson on December 15, 2010

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Do you know the difference between responsibility and blame?

Responsibility is empowering. It’s powerful. It’s all good.

When you take responsibility for your life, you put yourself in the driver’s seat. When you take responsibility for having hurt someone, you accept what you did so that you can learn from your mistakes and move on.

Responsibility = Acceptance.No wonder it feels so good to finally take responsibility after having shirked it.

Blame, on the other hand, is disempowering. When you blame yourself for the state of your life, you’re telling yourself the lie that you aren’t in charge. You become a victim.

When you blame yourself for having hurt someone else, you just feel shame and shame has no upside.

Responsibility has a huge upside. It’s motivating and liberating. You can create from a place of having taken responsibility.

Blame? No upside. Just makes you feel crappy, which demotivates and imprisons. You’re left to just react from a place of blame.

Blame is resistance.

So, if you’re blaming yourself or another person or some circumstance for the state of your life, you’re standing in your own way.

Instead, take responsibility for every single thing in your life (AND everything you believe is missing from it). Wanted and unwanted stuff. All of it.

All that means is that you accept it as it is and so you free yourself to create something new. If you were to blame yourself for it, you’d be resisting reality and you can’t create from there.